Negotiation of justice: the discursive construction of attitudinal positioning in bilingual legal judgments of HKSAR v KWAN WAN KI

Abstract

Abstract In appeal cases, judges from different levels of courts may have varying perspectives on the same set of facts, leading to different sentencing decisions. This study focuses on a specific traffic incident case in Hong Kong. In this case, a trial judge and a collegial panel at the High Court hold divergent opinions regarding the same set of facts, expressed through two different narrations and varying degrees of leniency in their rulings. By applying the framework of Appraisal Theory within a contextualized analysis, this paper reveals that the trial judge and the appellate judges employ differing amounts of evaluative expressions in reaching their decisions. I argue that evaluative language functions as a discursive strategy for negotiating justice, encompassing the narration of legal facts and the construction of legal arguments across different levels of the court system. Furthermore, through an examination of discrepancies between the two language versions, I contend that evaluative expressions, particularly the degree of attitude within the Appraisal Framework, warrant attention in the practice of legal translation. This attention is crucial for achieving a consistent level of emotive entropy in both language versions.